


Cyclic

by darieb



Category: Naruto
Genre: Dark, Gen, IN SPACE!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-30 01:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21420256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darieb/pseuds/darieb
Summary: How desperate do you need to be to leave into the unknown?





	1. Nightmare

Hope

They hoped.

To live, to win. To win without leaving behind yet another comrade, yet another friend. They hoped that every new tactic, jutsu and technique would be the pebble to deviate the river. They hoped to turn back the tides of war, the tides of blood gaining inevitably. They hoped that they would not drown in blood.

They hoped as they burned their dead. They hoped that they could retrieve those corpses rotting in the sun. They hoped that every mad gamble would be the one.

They hoped because to do otherwise would be to admit defeat. They hoped that their sacrifice wasn’t the futile struggles of a dying race. They hoped because to do otherwise was to invite madness?

They hoped.

Stand your ground

They stood their ground.

At first, to defend their home, their family, their lives. It didn’t work.

They ran when the walls fell. They ran like the wind but wind had already fallen. Weary and wary they ran but wherever they fled they were run down. They ran until they could run no more.

They hid.

The trees no longer sheltered them in their boughs. Seals worked for a while but hiding behind mere paper was a dream doomed to burn. They had dug down and their tunnels were crushed like their dreams.

They went home because when all is lost, you wait to re-join those gone before you. The proximity and ruins of a city like so many hands grasping and comforting a memento of a happy past. It is a fitting tomb as any other.

They stood their ground.

Break

They were broken.

Shadows clinging to hope where all hope was lost. Barriers crushed like eggshells. They could not stay but where else could they flee. They no longer dreamed of winning.

Survival, now that was a dream. Wishful thinking perhaps. Their dreams were full of death and the dead and dying. Death sunken and stinking from their very pores, grinding them down.

They were broken.

Madness

In the end, it was madness.

Seals upon barriers wound around the wreckage of steel and wood. Blood, spirit and chakra gathered in a last (lost) desperate gasp. A wish to die together if living was but a lingering death.

In the end they didn’t know what made the difference. Was it those mighty trees on the cusp of sentience? Was it those thousands of tortured souls sacrificed again and again? The dead brought back to defend that shrinking group. The children sacrificed for the greater good because to do otherwise would sign their death warrant anyways. Perhaps it was the salvaged tunnelling roots of seal tempered steel.

What survived was covered in tears, gaping holes and prayers. What brought that shuddering mass to life was the great seal, and black rods driven in sealed flesh.

Metal, wood and chakra, gathered in a wreck of a fortress, fused together, barely functional.

In the end, it was madness.

Left

They left.

It wasn’t entirely planned but it worked and any hope was dearly needed. More than food or rest, although that too was lacking. They rose, crying and numb for those left behind. Knowing that there was no other way. To not betray those fighting for their rear guard would betray the sacrifice of all the dead. They rose, shuddering, creaking groans sounding from both flesh and rust. They left blackened pitted earth, cratered and wounded.

Blurred black and red fading to green and blue, then sweeping white across shinig azure. They left into gaping darkness.

They left everything that they knew and were grateful. They tended to their wounded when it seemed that the danger could not follow.

They left.


	2. Dreaming

They were alive.

Despite all odds.

They had little food or water, fewer medical supplies and absolutely no clue as to where they were going.

The first day, if it could be called as such, was spent in numbness. Tending to the injured, guarding against the inevitable crushing of fragile hopes.

The second day was rest. The sleep of the dead who could go no further.

The third day was the they gathered an took stock. Hope budding in their hearts. Water could be wrung from chakra. Tools could be made from scrap. Food however was a concern. Most pressing was the cold and dark, kept at bay, barely, by great bonfires fed chakra filled wood.

They counted the dead and the living. How long they could live and what they needed.

They mapped what solid ground had come with them, torn up by the great roots of the senju trees. The dome of chakra stretching crimson above their heads and below their feet. A hushed womb where only the cries of the dying pierced their numbness. Their soul tethered by chakra conducting rods, a twisting thread of chakra their link, maintaining them in this star-studded emptiness.

What was their hope, a looming sphere, taking up the horizon?

The fourth day they cleared and built shelter, organised shifts, settled in for the long haul. Those few who had livestock or seed offered them up to have their growth enhanced by chakra. A pool of water was made to provide life what was essentially a small island. Water seeped through the earth, dripping into waterfalls, gathering into a boiling pool resting on the barrier. Steam billowed up forming clouds.

They tried exploring the world outside. Their blood boiled out of the smallest cu, eyes blurred and flesh frozen and bruised. They retreated, shaken and nauseous. How a gravity cancelling jutsu was maintained in the horrific total absence of chakra was a mystery. Their best sensors strained to map heir surroundings. The chakra of their home a fading warmth, and far into the distance, vague glimmers of alien energy.

It was this finding that answered the question no one could answer and few dared ask. What now? They knew that to return was futile. Were they to remain in this floating coffin?After all their struggles was unthinkable.

Left with the choice of a mad gamble or death, what choice was there?

They were alive.


End file.
